Friday, 23 December 2016

A Beautiful Glittering Lie - J.D.R. Hawkins

A
Beautiful Glittering Lie is a historical fiction novel set during the American Civil
War. Not being from the States, I have bare bones knowledge of this event in
history so I found the author’s detailed telling of events and way of life
during this time to be very interesting. The book provides both historical facts
and a look at the conditions that both the soldiers and the citizens lived in
during the Civil War. I found that some of the facts became rather dry and
dragged the story down, although I do realize that they are essential to the
story. For the most part, the story is told from the side of the Confederates.
I’ve really only ever read information from the other side so I found it very
interesting to read the alternate viewpoint. I can’t say I have changed my mind
about which side I would have supported during the war but it did open my eyes
as to why the Confederates felt the way they did. I found the pace of the book
quite slow and I struggled to stay interested but for anyone who is a Civil War
buff, this book would make for some entertaining reading. The characters are
well developed and realistically written. I enjoyed the variety of personalities
in the book, such as David who just wants to be like his dad and fight, and his
dad, tough as nails even in horrible conditions. It can be difficult to have a
lot of characters and make each one a worthwhile part of a book but the author
manages to do this well throughout the whole story. For me, the pace was a bit
slow but I realize the author had to do this in order to keep the realism of
the story. Sometimes action sequences have to be sacrificed. Overall, I did
learn a lot from this book, even with it being fiction, and I will look for
more books by this author.